Are your employees energized and committed to executing initiatives? If not, this message is for you.
A distributed workforce - sometimes referred to as a ‘frontline workforce’ - are individuals that do not work regularly from behind a desk or office. With the rise of hybrid work policies, right now 85% of the global workforce is considered ‘non-desk or frontline.’
This redistribution of the workforce can be great for employee morale - but how does it affect your employees’ engagement?
Is my team engaged?
If you ask ten of your colleagues to define employee engagement, the following phrases are likely to pop up:
“High performing”
“Hard working”
“Involved”
“Determined”
“Motivated”
“Happy”
All of these things are great, but at the core of employee engagement is the psychological investment an employee is willing to give to a task, team, or company.
The question is: Are your employees energized and committed to executing initiatives? If not, this message is for you.
A frontline workforce - sometimes referred to as a ‘distributed workforce’’ - are individuals that do not work regularly from behind a desk or office. With the rise of hybrid work policies, right now 85% of the global workforce is considered frontline workers.
This redistribution of the workforce can be great for employee morale in terms of flexibility, work life balance & increased levels of energy - but how does it affect your employees’ engagement? Sometimes, an employee can be happy, but disengaged. An employee can also be engaged, but not high-performing.
In 2022, companies are prioritizing employee engagement. Ironically, in these same companies, leadership may not be engaged. This causes a fundamental issue for employees, no matter their level of motivation.
For example, if a CEO is focused solely on profits and ignoring high employee turnover, they are probably creating an environment of disengaged and dissatisfied employees. Or, on the other hand, if a manager is solely focused on the mental wellbeing of an employee, and disregarding their performance or results, they are also creating an environment of disengagement.
How to actually engage employees
To answer this question, we’ve taken a good look at ourselves at Speakap, to share some tips and tricks we’ve learned over the years. While we’re not a frontline workforce, we do have employees all over the world working towards one shared goal. We do our best to walk the walk and talk the talk.
Our managers are emotionally intelligent: they’re focused on employee performance and mental wellbeing.
So how do we implement that?
Hackathons
A few times a year, we host a ‘Hack-A-Thon’. These are two days, in which employees put down their day-to-day work, have the opportunity to form teams across departments to think of ideas on how to improve our company’s internal processes then present those ideas to the entire organization. Teams compete against each other and the winners of the most innovative idea receive a prize.
Even smaller day or half-day Hackathon events like these encourage teamwork, innovation, and excitement. Employees have the chance to be heard by stakeholders, while often presenting ideas to improve their own working environments. This is a great way to engage employees, while giving them the opportunity to display their strengths and innovate the company from the inside out. You can give your own ring to it, make it relevant to your particular organization, involve your employees in the planning, and encourage the same interaction.
Amazing Managers
Pick your managers wisely, as they are the #1 contributing factor to the success of your bottom line. Over 55% of employees that quit do so because of their manager.
Managers are the bread and butter between C-suite goals and the employees that make it happen.
All businesses are here for the profits. So is the workforce. But, that doesn't need to be at the cost of employee wellbeing. In fact, doing so is likely to cost you more time and money in the long term.
Honestly, something like a Hack-A-Thon can result in hurt feelings or egos. Managers may have not noticed that trick to improve internal processes, which can make them feel inadequate.
At Speakap, we encourage innovation. It takes an emotionally intelligent manager to realize they were wrong, or overlooked something, and we encourage that self-reflection. After all, employees see right through the arrogance of the ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ mentality. Continuing to reward that attitude is not conducive to a productive working environment in 2022.
Managers are the bread and butter between C-suite goals and the employees that make it happen.
Encourage Breaks
This might seem a bit backwards. In American culture, we often hear ‘I will sleep when I'm dead,’ which is supposed to be a motivational quote. But some of the best corporations in the world, such as Google, encourage and implement breaks / vacations.
As we’ve heard in the past, ‘A happy wife makes a happy life.’ (although we debatably agree with this).
Well, we 100%` agree ‘healthy and respected employees drive profits’. It may not rhyme, but it’s true.
Employees that are drained, exhausted, and mentally suffering are not engaged.
Employees that are taken care of, will take care of you.
Conclusion
At Speakap, we are still figuring it out, just like you.
But these things have worked out for us, so we hope they help you too.
Engaging employees is hard, but fundamentally thinking outside the box can save you the pains of constant hiring, while supporting the employees that improve your bottom line.
If you are interested, we sell an employee application and implementation that’s aimed at engaging your workforce. We also advise our more than 500 customers on how to keep employees engaged using our technology. After all, it takes a village to raise an engaged frontline workforce.You can request a demo here.
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